Comparing desired workforce skills and reported teaching practices to model students’ experiences in undergraduate geoscience programs

A goal of undergraduate geoscience programs is to prepare students for the geoscience workforce. In order to understand the extent to which programs succeed at this goal, we identified desired workforce skills, compiled undergraduate geoscience program requirements, and mapped workforce skills onto faculty responses to the 2016 National Geoscience Faculty Survey categorized by respondent-provided course names for majors-level courses (n = 1037). We used a Bayesian statistical model to determine the posterior probability of students practicing desired workforce skills in undergraduate geoscience programs, using program profiles as the model prior, conditioned by the likelihood of a student practicing workforce skills in each course category based upon survey responses. Probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations of students in each example program were used to calculate the likely number of courses in which a student practiced each skill. Activities to help students develop skills related to geologic reasoning, working as part of a team, quantitative skills (algebra), applying skills in new scenarios, evaluation of scientific literature, temporal thinking, spatial thinking, written communication, and managing uncertainty are frequently encountered by students; on average, students encounter these activities at least seven times during an undergraduate program. In contrast, students encounter activities to help them develop an understanding of societal relevance and systems thinking, on average, fewer than three times during an undergraduate program. Our results provide a snapshot, via instructors’ reporting, of the state of workforce skill development across undergraduate degree programs, and both the approach and data set can be built upon for future studies.

本科地球科学专业的核心培养目标之一，是为地球科学行业输送适配的从业者。为厘清各高校该类专业在达成该目标上的实际成效，本研究首先明确了行业所需的从业技能，梳理了本科地球科学专业的课程培养要求，并依据受访者提供的本科专业核心课程名称进行分类，将行业所需从业技能与2016年全国地球科学教师调查（National Geoscience Faculty Survey）的教师反馈数据进行映射匹配，本次调查有效样本量为1037份。本研究采用贝叶斯统计模型（Bayesian statistical model），以专业培养方案作为模型先验，结合基于调查数据得到的学生在各课程类别中锻炼从业技能的可能性作为条件约束，计算本科地球科学专业学生掌握行业所需从业技能的后验概率（posterior probability）。针对各示例培养方案，本研究通过蒙特卡洛概率模拟（Probabilistic Monte Carlo simulations），计算学生在每类课程中锻炼各项技能的预期课程数量。学生在本科阶段可频繁接触到有助于培养地质推理、团队协作、代数类定量技能、跨场景技能应用、科学文献评估、时序思维、空间思维、书面沟通以及不确定性管理能力的教学活动；经统计，学生在整个本科培养周期中，平均参与此类活动的次数不少于7次。与之形成鲜明反差的是，学生用于提升社会相关性认知与系统思维能力的教学活动，平均在本科阶段的参与次数不足3次。本研究结果通过教师反馈视角，勾勒出当前本科地球科学专业从业技能培养的整体现状快照；本次研究采用的方法与数据集，均可作为后续相关研究的拓展基础。